


Boxed In, Break Out

by Zetared



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse, F/M, Gabriel Agreste’s A+ Parenting, Nathalie is Not a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-09-01 00:03:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20248840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetared/pseuds/Zetared
Summary: After the events of Party Crasher, Adrien expects to be punished. And he just goes on expecting it. And then he is.





	Boxed In, Break Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brinnanza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/gifts).

> The plot concept of this fic came from the beautiful mind of Brinnanza. I kept quite close to the original premise, with some added Adrien/Marinette angst and some added, brief, plot points.

“Adrien?” Marinette asks, tentative and nervous. She’s often like that around him, tense and jittery. He understands the emotions--a tight ball of anxiety in his chest, a tremor in his hands, a hot and painful knot in his throat, strangling his voice--and, yet, he doesn’t know what he does to inspire them in her. 

Why is she so afraid of him? And how can he fix it? Adrien doesn’t want to make anyone feel scared. He worries about that, sometimes, when he’s all alone and such forbidden thoughts can’t help but rise. Will he become like his father in that way if in no other? Gabriel Agreste is terrifying. Everyone around him shies away in a mortifying combination of awe and fear. 

That’s what Marinette does, when Adrien gets too close.

“Oh, hi, Marinette,” he says, realizing belatedly that he’s hesitated too long.

Marinette’s cheeks are red, her eyes downcast, his drawn-out silence only increasing her nerves. “H-hi! So, uhm. I was wondering. About, you know, about that party--.”

Adrien interrupts, dreading where this conversation is headed, desperate to derail Marinette’s well-meaning question as soon as possible. That’s the thing about Marinette; she’s kind, and she’s observant, and she cares, no matter how much he seems to scare her to bits. “Yeah! That was fun, wasn’t it? Before the whole akumatized villain part, I mean. I’m glad you managed to sneak in.”

“Me, too,” Marinette agrees, eagerly. But then she seems to catch herself in the act and she slinks back from him, hugging herself tightly. Adrien tries not to wince at the sudden shift in body language, unsure what he’s done to make her curl up on herself like that, self-conscious and withdrawn. “But, uhm, that isn’t what I was g-going to ask.”

“Oh,” Adrien says. Words fail him, after that. It’s not a situation he often finds himself in, and he doesn’t care for it, now. 

“Did you...you didn’t get in trouble, did you?” Marinette asks, and some genuine emotion seeps past her awkwardness, her concern almost tangible in its intensity. He could practically touch it.

“No, I--it’s fine. Really. I’m not in trouble,” Adrien assures her with a winning smile. The _‘yet’_ hangs between them, unspoken. Marienette, though, seems appeased by his response. Her tension flees her body all in a rush and she smiles at him, wide and toothy and actually...pretty cute. 

Adrien blinks. 

“Uh, so, I should go,” Adrien says, backing away a few steps without thinking about it. “I have--.” Actually, he can’t remember what he has. Fencing, probably? What day of the week is it? “--something.” Well, that’s never a lie, at least. He definitely always has something he has to go do. Nathalie’s schedules for him are precise and practically bursting at the seams.

“O-okay!” Marinette calls as he rushes out of the school building. “Have--fun?”

\--

Adrien is smart. It’s not a brag, it’s just the truth. Sure, he’s not nearly as clever as Ladybug--he’s not especially adept at puzzles or chess or things like that; tactics and strategy aren’t his wheelhouse. But he’s well-educated and motivated, and he’s good extremely good at adapting to new situations based on previously accumulated data points.

Which is why, for the life of him, he can’t figure his father out.

Previous experiences have taught him that Adrien should, by rights, be grounded right now. There’s no way that the Gorilla hasn’t tattled on Adrien and his friends. Even if Max’s action figures had managed to bribe the bodyguard enough to buy the Gorilla’s silence, the whole house is full of security measures. No one can possibly get in or out--especially through the front gate--without Gabriel Agreste’s knowledge.

His father _knows_ that Adrien had a party without permission. A big, wild, messy party that ended in a supervillain attack. 

So why is Adrien here, sitting at his computer finishing homework and chatting with Nino via text, as if it’s just a normal evening? Why hadn’t his father said anything about it at dinner? Or via Nathalie, even, as his punishments are so often expressed?

Adrien has never erred that Gabriel has failed to act, immediately, and without mercy. (He’s not violent. Adrien thinks about that a lot, actually. About how ‘it’ doesn’t count, probably, because Gabriel isn’t violent. He’s not even especially _loud_. He’s just...decisive. He strikes out like a viper, sudden and sharp, over before the bite has barely begun.) Adrien makes mistakes, and Gabriel punishes them with isolation and long, lonely hours of total boredom. That’s how this works. The data proves it.

So what the heck is going on?

‘Better safe than sorry’ is a perfectly fine motto to live by, Adrien decides. He keeps his head down in the weeks that follow. He goes to and from school exactly as his schedule dictates. He attends all of his extracurricular lessons with total, narrow-minded focus. He completes all his homework in record time and goes the extra mile to keep his grades high in every class. He rebuffs the invitations of his friends (with no small measure of guilt), well aware that to bring Nino or the others within even a hair’s breadth of the house, now, would be disastrous. He’s perfect. Absolutely, unquestionably perfect. He makes sure of it.

“H-hi, Adrien,” Marinette says. This time, though, she’s not alone. Half of their class, if not more, lingers behind her, peeking at him with uncustomarily somber expressions.

“Uhm,” Adrien manages, taken aback. “Hi?”

Marinette swallows heavily. She straightens her spine, sets her shoulders, and looks him directly in the eye (and for one very bizarre and confusing moment, she reminds him of someone else--but who--?). “Is everything okay?”

Adrien blinks at Marinette. And, over her shoulder, at Nino and Alya and Ivan and Max and the others. He smiles at them, warm and just a tiny bit guileless. “Sure! Everything’s great! Why, is something--has something happened?” He wouldn’t be surprised if something’s happened. Paris is sort of dangerous, what with Hawkmoth’s weekly attacks and everything. (Sure, if something really BIG happened, he’d probably know about it, because he’s Chat Noir, but it’s not like he can explain that to his friends, can he? Definitely not.)

“Y-yeah! No, yes! Everything is--I mean, if you’re fine, then, I mean--!”

“What she’s trying to say is that we’re worried about you,” Alya says in her usual getting-down-to-business way. “You’ve hardly been around for weeks.”

“Yeah, dude. You don’t text, you don’t call,” Nino adds, with a grin. His tone is light and teasing, but there’s no denying the concern in his eyes.

Adrien tries not to grimace. “Oh, no. That’s no big deal. I’ve just been really busy, lately. You know my schedule can get that way, sometimes.”

“You sure? Because Nino told us about the party--,” Alya begins.

“--That was fun!” Adrien blurts out, rather sharply. “It...was fun, right? Totally fun.”

Nino and Alya trade glances. Max nervously pushes his glasses up his nose. Marinette makes a small, high squeaking sound and looks down at her shoes, shuffling her feet.

“If you’re s-sure you’re okay,” Marinette says, at her feet.

Adrien resists the urge to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She probably wouldn’t like that. “I’m great!” he promises her. He looks at the others behind her. “Sorry I haven’t been available much, lately. Let’s get together next week, okay? Anywhere you want to go, I’ll be there. I promise.”

They all smile at him, clearly relieved by his chipper attitude. 

Adrien prides himself on being an exceptional actor, for a model.

\--

Eventually, Adrien convinces himself that he’s been wrong all along. The Gorilla must not have blabbed. Gabriel must not have seen the security footage and associated reports. He’s been worrying about the party for nothing. He’s been free and clear the whole time! And Adrien lets go of his concerns and slowly allows himself to engage in the world, again. He goes to the park with Nino to horse around. He goes on a group outing to the movies and watches some awful American action movie, enjoying the groans and moans of irritation from his friends. He allows himself to be distracted at his lessons, sending lots of texts and video clips back and forth with his school friends. He plays video games for hours one night, barely managing to dash under his covers in time when Nathalie comes in to check on him after midnight, stirred, no doubt, by his cry of triumph when he’d finally defeated the last level. 

When it happens, finally, it happens so quickly, so without warning, that his head spins.

He drops a book. One of his school books topples out of his half-opened book bag on his way across the foyer, and it falls to the marble floor with a loud, echoing _SLAM_. Not even seconds later, Nathalie’s head pops out from the living room door. On the other side, his father appears in the opposite doorway, his expression fierce. 

It’s the sort of mistake that usually garners little more than a narrow-eyed look and, if he’s especially unlucky, a pursing of the lips. Today, though, is strange. Today defies any and all logic, flying in the fact of all experience, shattering Adrien’s hard-won knowledge of dance between himself and his father into bits.

It’s unpleasant, being manhandled by the Gorilla, though it’s certainly not the first time he’s experienced it. Gabriel Agreste isn’t violent, and he certainly never gets his own hands dirty. But he’s not afraid to delegate. Gorilla is big and broad and, even when trying to gentle, his massive hands leave bruises that will linger for days around Adrien’s arm.

Nathalie appears in his room about ten minutes later, to explain the terms of his grounding. Adrien watches, glumly, as his electronics (his computer, his phone, the TV, even the tiny clock radio on his nightstand) all are dismantled and hauled out of his sight. He listens to the long ramble of stipulations with little more than a twitch until the final, horrible blow. 

“--and you will remain here until your father feels you have learned your lesson.”

“Here? In my room?” Adrien asks, eyes wide. It’s not the first time he’s been locked in his room, sure, but it’s the first time he’s been threatened with such since he started attending public school. “But what about--?”

“--Your teachers will be warned of your absence. You are, as far as they are aware, very ill. You will say as much to your classmates, if you return.”

“_If_?” Adrien whispers, all the blood draining from his face. He has to sit down on the couch, his knees turned to mush. He stares at Nathalie, shocked, for the first time, by how _cold_ she seems, in all of this. He knows that her poker face is her forte. He’s always found it rather charming, really, and done his best to force her to crack a smile--if that subtle twitch of the lips could ever be called a smile--with dumb jokes and puns, whenever she and Adrien were alone. But, now, there is no hint of that soft amusement in her eyes. She’s stern, serious, immovable. Nathalie, more than anyone, considers his father’s word to be law. 

Adrien did, too, once. Maybe he still does. But, this? This is...it doesn’t seem just. It’s not fair. “I dropped a book,” he reminds Nathalie hollowly, as she glides out of his room and goes to lock the door behind her. 

Nathalie meets him, eye to eye. “Did you?” she asks, and that’s the last thing anyone (except for Plagg; thank God no one else knows about Plagg) says to him for a week.

\--

Adrien tosses Plagg a small wedge of cheese. “It’s the last one,” he warns his kwami. Nathalie will bring him food, later, but she likely won’t be interested in his pleas for cheese. Adrien’s always been careful about the camembert, buying it with his own allowance whenever he was more-or-less on his own.

Plagg makes a face at the announcement, but it doesn’t inspire him to start rationing. He swallows the wedge with a gulp and then proceeds, as he has for the past seven days, to complain about their situation. 

“None of this would have happened if you weren’t such a butterfingers,” Plagg declares, throwing himself dramatically against Adrien’s head and rolling around fitfully in his hair. 

“I don’t think that--I don’t _think_ that’s why--whatever, Plagg,” Adrien replies, equally grumpy.

Hawkmoth hasn’t even had the decency to attack, this week. Adrien would have taken the risk of sneaking out of the house for the sake of Paris. So, of course, no villains have appeared in days, utterly denying Chat Noir the chance to spread his wings. He looks out of the big, bright windows and dimly remembers a daytime nightmare in which the sleek glass panels had been broken by the line of thick, iron bars. There are no bars, now, but it hardly makes a difference to his situation. He’s just as trapped.

Adrien turns onto his side on the couch. There’s not much to keep him occupied in his room now that all of his most diverting toys have been taken away. He’s spent hours and hours practicing the piano. He’s re-read a few books. Mostly, he stares up at the ceiling and, when the kwami has a mind to, speaks with Plagg.

Plagg is actually not very good company. His favorite topic is cheese. His biggest concern is the acquisition of more cheese. And when he’s not rattling off about cheese, he’s berating Adrien for getting himself and his kwami grounded. At first, Adrien had felt ashamed and guilty. Now, he bristles and growls at the small black creature, tired of being accused of the horrible crime of _dropping a book_.

Adrien remembers Gabriel’s hard, angry gaze and flinches. Okay, so, maybe he could be a bit less noisy and clumsy. He should have caught the book. He’s an expert fencer and a literal superhero, for God’ssake! He should have caught the book.

When Adrien’s door opens late Saturday morning, he bolts upright, his heart pounding in his throat. Is it over, finally? Can he go?

His father is as stiff and kempt as ever. He hardly looks at Adrien as he says, primly, “You’ve behaved yourself admirably this week. I have decided to allow you a visitor.”

Adrien leaps up from the couch, eyes hopeful. He can’t bring himself to dare speak, but his head is full of hope. Who is here to see him? Nino? He hopes it’s Nino. They haven’t spoken at all since his mistake, and he’s sure his friend must be worried. Adrien misses him a lot.

“A friend of my choosing, of course,” Gabriel adds. Something flickers behind his gaze, something Adrien can’t place because understanding it would only add insult to injury. (It’s satisfaction, lit by the way Adrien’s face falls).

_Chloe_, Adrien thinks, with a wince. Then, he feels a flash of guilt. He shouldn’t be so dismissive of Chloe. She’s his oldest friend, after all. And she’s not been so bad, lately, not since her turn as Queen Bee. Having those opportunities have given her some perspective, at least. Sure, she’s not especially magnanimous or kind, yet, but she’s not so bad to spend time with, really. He can at least be sure she’ll be glad to see him. He forces a smile.

He’s so certain it’s Chloe, so absolutely convinced, that when Lila Rossi walks through the door, his jaw all but bounces off the floor. “_Lila_?” he squeaks, then clears his throat, steadying himself. “Lila,” he repeats, levelly. “It’s...nice to see you.” 

Well, at least she won’t be the only one in this conversation telling boldfaced lies.

\--

He languishes in his room for another five days. Lila is allowed to visit on Sunday and then every afternoon after school. She doesn’t hesitate to take over his territory with her presence. She sits on all his furniture, she plunks out nonsense noises on the piano, she chatters at him endlessly about all the famous people she knows and all the amazing things she’s done. He doesn’t suppose _all_ of it is lies, but it’s honestly impossible to tell. She’s a master at it. And she’s not above using those tactics to her advantage beyond simple self-elevation, either.

She tells him about school. About how everyone is concerned about his illness (probably true?) and how much they miss him (gratifying, if true). But, after a while, her stories take on a darker tone. She tells them his friends are starting to think he’s lied. They think he’s abandoned them without saying goodbye. They think he’s decided he’s too good for them. They’re angry with him. They hate him. They--.

When she leaves, Plagg zips out of Adrien’s sweater and settles warmly against the nape of his neck. Adrien makes a soft, annoyed noise and digs his face more firmly into the cushion of the couch. Plagg just presses his small, warm body against the dip in Adrien’s neck even harder. 

“She’s a liar,” Plagg reminds him, firmly.

“That doesn’t mean she’s lying,” Adrien replies, muffled. “That doesn’t mean she’s wrong.”

For a while, now, he’s questioned if he’ll ever get out of here.

Now, he starts to wonder what he’ll be left with, if he ever does.

\--

Then, Thursday, Hawkmoth emerges for the first time in ages. An akuma attacks. A new supervillain rises. 

Adrien stares at the windows, accusingly. Outside of them, he has a perfect view of Ladybug and the new villain racing around the rooftops. Ladybug is holding her own admirably, but it’s obvious just by looking that she can’t handle it all by herself.

“Just go!” Plagg insists.

“I’m--if he finds out I’m gone….” Adrien stammers back, trailing off at the end. He’s got those feelings--a tight ball of anxiety in his chest, a tremor in his hands, a hot and painful knot in his throat, strangling his voice. If Gabriel discovers Adrien has broken out, he’ll be in such a level of trouble that even Adrien’s well-developed imagination can’t quite picture it. Moreover, if he gets caught out, it might compromise his identity. Chat Noir might be compromised, and that would be the end of everything.

Plagg dives without warning under his shirt.

And then, suddenly, Ladybug herself is perched on the edge of his window, tapping on the glass. He shifts his stare from the whole of Paris to the beautiful, red-and-black themed heroine. She offers him a small wave. Adrien swallows hard. Opening the window isn’t easy. They’re massive and heavy and while he _can_ get out of them (it’d be unsafe, otherwise; what if there was a fire?--at least, that’s the argument he always uses whenever his father brings it up), it’s not simple by any means. Luckily, Ladybug catches on quick and she helps from her end, grasping the tilted pane of glass and tugging it down until she can slip through.

“Ladybug!” Adrien greets. It’s always weird to see Ladybug in places he doesn’t expect her, like the school or in his home. 

Ladybug doesn’t respond right away. She’s peering at him intently, her head tilted to the side slightly, her eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem sick.”

Adrien blinks, taken entirely off guard by the unexpected accustation. So much so that he doesn’t think to prevaricate. “I’m not.”

Ladybug’s eyes drift away from him and dart around his room and then back to him again. Her eyes are less accessing, now, and more worried. “Where did all your stuff go?”

“Wha--?” Adrien begins, again taken aback. Ladybug knows his room well enough to notice things are missing? Why? How? What?

She starts to press the issue but is distracted when the akumatized villain suddenly slams, hard, against the half-opened window. It’s a big monster of a thing, oozing algae and muck everywhere. 

“He looks like the Swamp Thing,” Adrien notes, with interest.

Ladybug ignores that statement. “Listen, I’m short a partner, today. Can you help me?”

Adrien wants to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation, but he holds his mirth back, forcing himself into battle mode. He takes on a defensive posture. “Anytime.”

Ladybug smiles at him, a big, dazzling, warm smile that--especially after so long alone--makes his heart clench, his body tingling warmly from head to toe. “Thanks. Heads up!” And she shouts a sharp “Lucky Charm!” into the air.

She stares down at the wooden triangle in her hands. “Is this...what is this?”

“It’s a rack. You know, for playing pool,” Adrien says, helpfully. He darts out of the way as a big, drippy paw swoops over his head. It smells rank, like a stale pond. The Swamp Thing has bright red eyes. Adrien doesn’t recognize the creature as someone he knows.

Ladybug looks around the room. Adrien knows the expression on her face well, familiar as his own face, watching Ladybug scope out her surroundings to defeat the baddie and save the day. “Got it!” she says, right on time, and Adrien grins.

“Can you--?” she asks him, racing already toward the basketball hoop on his wall (Nathalie had taken the ball, but not the basket). 

Adrien is already on the move himself, falling easily into the old routine of providing a distraction while Ladybug works. “Hey, Swampy! _Algae _needing you to come over here, you _seaweed_ really like to cut this short!” He scrambles (leaping is a skill that requires the Miraculous, sadly) onto the top of the piano and waves his arms.

The creature turns its head. Ladybug, too, turns as she runs, stumbling slightly at his display and, more notably, his puns. She gives her head a firm shake, however, and commits herself to her task. Questions can wait until after the villain is defeated.

Ladybug jumps onto the orange rim of the basketball hoop. She spins in place to face out over the room and raises the pool rack over her head. “Adrien, do you see where the--?”

“Not under all the moss!” Adrien replies. He spins around the beast’s huge, grasping hands. “Wait! No, it’s--.”

“In the eyes!” they both say at once. The creature’s red eyes are too bulbous and shiny to be real; they’re the lenses of a pair of large sunglasses, and that’s where the akuma is.

“I’m--,” Ladybug starts, but Adrien is already half jumping, half stumbling off the piano, right over the creature’s head. He races toward her and reaches up even as she reaches down to grab him by the wrists. With ease, she flicks him up and over the rim so that he is perched on the top of the white backboard, his shoulders pressed against the wall behind him. 

The Swamp Thing blunders toward them. With perfect timing, Ladybug lets the lucky charm drop over the creature’s head. It squeezes around his neck, and he flails, trying to break it off. Before he can, Ladybug drops down to sit on the net and kicks out a toe, cracking the glasses’s lens into pieces. The akuma flies out, and she purifies it with ease.

“Miraculous Ladybug!” she cries, throwing the pool rack up into the air. Adrien breathes a sigh of relief as all the nasty pond sludge the Swamp Thing had left behind cleans itself up.

“Uhh, Ladybug?” Adrien calls down to where she stands near the formerly akumatized Paris citizen. “Can you help me down?”

\--

Ladybug goes almost immediately to the door, intending to guide the akuma victim (a total stranger to them both) out of the house. She is stymied, however, by the obvious locked door. She jiggles it again to no avail. She keeps her hand on the handle and her eyes on the surface of the door as she asks, softly, “Adrien?”

“I’m sure Nathalie will come by and open it, soon. She probably heard all the noise.” 

Ladybug takes a deep breath and lets it out, really slow. She turns. Her eyes are knowing, her jaw tight. “How long have you been in here?”

Adrien gapes at her, not quite sure how to respond. “I...dropped a book,” he says, meekly, as if that explains anything, as if that even begins to answer her question.

“Okay,” Ladybug says. Her voice is tight, and the nod she gives him in reply is sharp, but she doesn’t press the issue. “Then I guess we’ll wait for Nathalie.”

Her earrings start to beep. For the first time ever that he can recall, Adrien hears Ladybug utter a curse. “Or not. I have to go.”

Adrien nods. “I know. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure this guy gets home.”

“That isn’t the only thing I’m worried about,” Ladybug says, rather snippily. When he flinches at her tone, however, she softens. “I’m coming back tomorrow to see you. Can you let me in, again?”

Adrien thinks about the surveillance system, about his father, about all the possible ways it could go wrong and land him in even hotter waters. “Yeah, all right.”

She puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. He presses into the touch, hungry for it in a way he could never explain to anyone else. 

“Be safe,” she says, and then she’s gone.

Adrien clears his throat nervously, turning to the dumbfounded Parisan. “Do you...play piano?” Adrien asks, politely.

\--

Adrien watches, dully, as two well-paid workmen seal all of his windows shut. When that’s done, they paint over the glass with thick, black paint, hiding away the entirety of the world. Nathalie stands near the door, watching their progress. Not long after, a whole team of men and women in similar garb come by and pack up all his books into big wooden crates which they then wheel out the door.

Adrien sits down on the couch and wonders how much more will disappear from his room before he breaks.

\--

His tutors start to appear, again--all the old familiar faces from before he started going to a proper school. He swallows back tears the first time old Mrs. Berger appears at his bedroom door, ready and rarin’ to teach him mathematics. He’s both horrified and deeply pleased to see her. When she leaves for the day, he gives into impulse and hugs her tightly around her meaty shoulders. She eventually shakes off her shock and hugs him back, and it’s the nicest thing that’s happened to him since Ladybug appeared unexpectedly in his room.

It’s been nearly another week, since then. Ladybug very well might have appeared again at his window the day after, as promised, but he doesn’t know. He couldn’t see nor hear her through the modified panes of glass.

\--

Lila huffs a breath at him, irritation clear. It’s likely the most genuine expression he’s ever seen on her face, assuming that her annoyance isn’t simply another part of a longer con. But, no, he doesn’t think so. She’s been getting progressively fed up with him for days, now, stymied by his listless silence and his inattention. No matter how many engrossing, troublesome lies she tries to tell him about his friends and the school and what’s going on in Paris, he lets it flow in one ear and out the other. It doesn’t matter, anymore, what’s real and what’s fiction. It’s all untouchable, unseeable. It might as well not exist.

“Don’t come back, Lila,” he says. And when she goes to argue the point, he lifts a hand and shakes his head. “Please.”

And she doesn’t.

\--

Plagg pokes and prods at him, for a while, but eventually gives it up as a no-go. “You realize Hawkmoth has probably attacked again,” the kwami presses. “Ladybug is out there all on her own!”

Adrien considers this for a while. It’s many hours later before he lets his retort be spoken aloud, long after Plagg has gone to sleep and isn’t listening. “Yeah. Me, too.”

\--

His days are filled with tutors and homework and long stretches of silence spent in a room far dimmer and more quiet than it used to be. Sometimes at night he wakes in total, utter darkness and his whole soul recoils away from it, accustomed to falling asleep to the gentle glow of Paris’s lights.

\--

It probably shouldn’t shock him, when the akuma appears.

Plagg hisses violently at the sight of it. He dodges away and behind Adrien. “Don’t! Adrien, don’t you dare!”

Adrien doesn’t need to be told twice. He backs up several rapid steps, panicking. He dodges the persistent black butterfly and resorts to fleeing across the room, pounding on the door and shouting for help.

Nobody comes, and Adrien can’t even find it in himself to feel betrayed, anymore. 

“Plagg!” Adrien yells, ducking behind the couch, away from the danger. “Claws out!”

\--

(Somewhere hidden, somewhere Adrien knows nothing about, Hawkmoth staggers backward, eyes wide with surprise.

He’d never expected to need to akumatize his own son, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and no soul in all of Paris cried out as loudly as Adrien’s, as of late. But what he _certainly_ had not expected was to reach out to Adrien, and akumatize the famed Chat Noir, instead.

No time to consider the implications, no time to bend to the realization that his _son_ is--

“Chat Blanc,” Hawkmoth says, silkily. “I have a task for you.”)

\--

His world shatters and reforms wrong. That is the best way he can think to describe the sensation. All of his thoughts and feelings break into shards with the touch of the akuma’s small body. Then, Hawkmoth fills his mind and heart, forcing all the broken pieces back together in strange, twisted, terrible ways.

He remembers little of it, later.

In the moment, it comes to him in bits and pieces, too. Using Cataclysm on the windows, watching with satisfaction as they blow out as if under the force of a hurricane, scattering on the ground far, far below. He leaps into the open air and falls, falls, falls only to catch himself at the last minute with his staff.

Ladybug is there almost instantly, to his perception. In truth, it took her a few minutes to swing across the city once the news had broken--Char Noir, akumatized!

Chat Blanc isn’t a fool. He knows Hawkmoth’s desires well enough. The problem is, he has desires of his own, and they take precedence. 

Ladybug finds him standing stock still in the middle of the street, staring up, up at the tall buildings and the blue sky beyond.

“...Kitty?” she says, approaching him carefully, a hand outstretched.

Chat Blanc doesn’t bother looking her way. “It’s big, isn’t it?”

She stops walking towards him, keeps her hand raised as she follows his gaze. “...What is?”

“The sky.”

Ladybug makes a small, strangled sound, followed by a painful sounding swallow. “I t-t-tried to get through,” she says, voice meek and shaken and stammering in a manner that Chat Blanc finds strikingly familiar. “But even my yoyo couldn’t break the glass.”

A silence between them. 

Ladybug says, carefully, “Our--Your friends from school. They tried to get in, too. Through the front door, at first, and then more secretly. They just couldn’t get past--well. So, Nino told his mom. And--and some others told their parents, too. They were all just getting the police to come around to their way of thinking, when....”

He shoots her a smile. It’s far more fanged than she’s used to. “When the Interrupting Akumas struck again, huh?”

She smiles back at him, uncertainly. “Something like that.” She bites her lip. “This is strange. Are--are you going to fight me?”

Chat Blanc shrugs. “Hawkmonth wants your Miraculous. He’s already got mine, technically. I figure--.”

“--You think it’s going to be that easy to take me down?” she asks, challengingly, moving into a battle pose.

He laughs, a soft chuckle. “No, milady. I think it’d be a waste of my time to try.”

Chat Blanc’s head snaps up and back, his eyes going wide. A purple aura in the shape of a moth appears around his eyes. He blinks against the light of it but then loses focus, his head full of Hawkmoth’s angry tones.

“Stop flirting and _get my Miraculous!” _he demands. The order comes with pain, a stab like an ice pick in his skull.

Chat Blanc laughs again, full and loud, now, just to make Hawkmoth angry. “No can do, Hawkmoth. I know Ladybug better than anyone in Paris. If I wanted to waste my time outside of lockup getting my butt handed to me, sure. But, shockingly, I don’t.” 

Chat looks at Ladybug and feels his heart go warm at the sight of her, perfect in red-and-black spots. “I want to see my friends. Will you come with me?”

He jerks his head as another sharp, punishing pain slices through it. But he grits his fangs and bears it, ignoring the persistent voice in his head. He reaches out a clawed hand to his heroine. “Please?”

Ladybug stares at his hand, probably looking for the glow of Cataclysm or something equally dangerous. Finding nothing but gloved fingers, she nods shortly and takes his hand in hers. “Okay.” 

\--

Alya looks from Ladybug to Chat No--whoops, nope, Chat Blanc--incredulously. “He wants to _what_?”

“He wants to hang out.”

“With us?” Rose asks, timidly. She’s seemingly pretty wary of Chat Blanc, clearly intimidated by his prominent fangs, extra long claws, and the way a purple moth-shaped halo keeps appearing around his eyes every few minutes, causing him to jerk back as if zapped.

“With you,” Ladybug says, firmly. “It’s okay if you’d like to go home. I just wanted to ask.”

Nino frowns at Chat Blanc thoughtfully. “I’m down for it. But, uh, why does the villain wanna hang with _us_, exactly? No offense, Chat-Dude.”

Chat Blanc grins at him. “None taken.” The purple glow appears again. Chat hisses softly, putting his hand to his head. 

“_Chat Blanc! Stop with this ridiculous behavior and do as you are TOLD! Adrien, you will do as I say!”_

“Chat!” Ladybug says, sharply. Chat Blanc blinks his way back to reality, staring at her in question. She mimes rubbing her hand under her nose. He mimics her on instinct. His bright white glove comes away red. He grimaces in distaste.

“Sorry about that,” he says, growling low in his throat. “Someone’s feeling chatty.”

“You could let me break--whatever it is--and let the akuma out,” Ladybug reminds him, gently. 

The others around them try to look like they aren’t eavesdropping. They fail. 

“I just...I want to--just for--can we just--?” 

Alya stares. She’s never heard Chat Noir stammer like that, before. He’s usually quick on his feet and quick with the quips. Right now, akumatized, his shoulders bend under some hidden weight, and he seems incapable of holding a conversation for more than a few seconds, constantly bombarded by Hawkmonth’s ranting as he is.

“You won’t go back there,” Ladybug says, cryptically.

Chat grins at her. It’s a very unsettling look, right now. More like he’s going to eat her (my, kitty, what big teeth you have!) than anything. “Promises, promises, milady.”

“I mean it,” she says, firmly. “Let me take care of the akuma. Let me end this.”

“And then--?”

“I _promise_,” she says.

Chat Blanc swallows hard, apparently overwhelmed by the vehemence in her voice. 

“Okay,” he agrees, faintly. He turns to the rest of them, waving his bloodied hand in farewell. “See you, guys.”

And then he and Ladybug are suddenly blitzing off to some rooftop somewhere, leaving them all lingering behind. 

Alya and Nino trade glances. They look at Rose and Juleka and the rest. “So, uh...we can still go to the movies, if you want?”

\--

Chat Blanc falls to his knees as they land on the roof. His staff goes skittering across the concrete with the force of his landing. Blood flows freely from his nose, now, and he twitches where he kneels, eyes glassy as he listens to a voice from far, far away.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ladybug says, stomping hard on the staff. It breaks into two pieces, and the akuma flies free.

“Huh,” she says, after she’s purified it. “I didn’t even need a Lucky Charm that time.”

She looks around, a bit confused. “How do I perform Miraculous Ladybug without the Lucky Charm?”

Adrien sniffs, rubbing the back of his wrist against his nose. “I wouldn't worry about it, Ladybug. The only thing broken are my capillaries and the worst windows in the world. I, for one, won’t mourn the collateral damage.”

Ladybug crouches down and meets his eyes. “Are you--are you okay?”

“Everything’s fuzzy. Did I--did I ask you my friends to hang out with me?”

She laughs softly. “Yeah.”

He makes a face, obviously embarrassed. “Well. I guess I could have done worse.”

“I’m sure you could be a very scary villain, if you wanted to be,” she soothes him, only half-teasing. 

Adrien smiles at her. He shakes his head slightly, looking away for a moment before returning his gaze. “So, uh. Cat’s out of the bag, huh?”

Ladybug shrugs. “Yeah. You’re Adrien.” She then, for some reason he cannot begin to understand, blushes. “I-I mean. It’s f-fine, though, right? I mean, you know I wouldn’t--I wouldn’t _ever_\--I mean, I couldn’t even--!”

He stares at her, shocked by her sudden turn in disposition. It reminds him...it reminds him a _lot_ of--.

“Marinette.”

Ladybug goes very, very still. “What?” she squeaks.

“Marinette,” he repeats, leaning forward. Then, carefully, he pulls off her earrings. She lets him, despite everything, despite the fact that two minutes ago he was akumatized, despite the fact that he’s her _partner_, and they promised each other they wouldn’t--they--.

“Marinette,” he says one last time, smiling warmly. “I should have known.”

“Y-you should have?” she asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah. Smart, pretty, compassionate...tiny bit clumsy. Of course there’s only one girl like you in the whole of Paris.”

Marinette covers her face with her hands. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

A red and black kwami floats around her head and lands on it, waving at Adrien in greeting. “I can!” she says, in a high, happy voice.

“Tikki!” Plagg yelps, zipping out from under Adrien’s shirt. “Tikki! You will not believe the month I’ve had! It’s been awful! There hasn’t been any cheese for _weeks_. I’m _starving._”

Marinette looks up sharply at that. “Starving?” she echoes, eyes darting over Adrien’s body worriedly.

It’s Adrien’s turn to blush. “Plagg’s a picky eater. We--I--got fed plenty. He just doesn’t like anything that isn’t camembert.”

“Omigosh, this explains why you--.”

“--Why I what?”

Marinette looks as if she’d like very much to melt into the rooftop. “I, uhm. You. Smell. A bit.”

“What?” Adrien yelps, grabbing the front of his shirt and sniffing at it. 

“Only a little bit! And, and I, I...likethesmellofstinkycheeses,” she finishes, all in one breath.

Plagg and Tikki make the exact same sound of exasperation at the same time.

Adrien grins. “Oh. Well. That’s okay, then.”

\--

Adrien grips Marinette’s hand vice-tight in his. “I don’t think I can do this,” he says, softly.

Behind them, Tom Dupain puts one giant hand on Adrien’s shoulder. Nino’s mom places her hand on his other shoulder--she’s not nearly so physically intimidating, but she’s the one who intends to take Adrien in, once this is all settled, so her presence provides just as much comfort. 

“You’ve done scarier things,” Marinette reminds him, in a whisper.

He shoots her an incredulous look.

She, realizing her error, shrugs apologetically.

It had taken only a few hours after being de-akumatized before Adrien had stopped in his tracks, tugging Marinette back with his lack of momentum.

“I just remembered something,” he’d said in a hushed whisper, afraid to say it out loud for fear it might be true.

“Wha--?” Marinette had asked, in a very Marinette way.

“I know--Marinette, I _know _who Hawkmoth is.”

Hawkmoth had called him Adrien. And while that in and of itself had perhaps not been so strange--it was supposed by many that Hawkmoth developed a superficial mental link with all his victims--the _way_ he had called him Adrien spoke volumes. Adrien had heard that same threatening statement a thousand times before, exactly in that cadence.

It hadn’t taken too much to bring Gabriel Agreste to justice, once they’d had a direction in which to point the proper authorities. Combined with Adrien’s testimony and his friends’ support of his accusations of abuse, the evidence had been more than enough to get the creaky wheels of justice rolling. And that was even before the police had found Gabriel’s creepy lair and the fridge’d body of his supposed-dead wife.

And, now, Adrien faces two of his biggest adversaries in the form of one man. 

Gabriel Agreste looks strange in the light of the court, washed out and grim and maybe even a bit scared. Adrien looks away from him, turning his attention to the judges, instead. His father doesn’t want his pity, and he doesn’t deserve it, either.

The man formerly known as Hawkmoth is found guilty on all charges. He will spend his life alone, locked away, out of sight. The irony is not lost on anyone in the room. Adrien breathes a heavy sigh of relief and regret. As soon as they all step outside the courthouse, Adrien looks up at the big, big sky. For a while there, he’d started to think he’d never see it again.

“We have time to stop by the hospital, if you want,” Nino’s mom says as he and Marinette scramble into the backseat of her small car.

Emilie Agreste lies in a secluded room in a private hospital in a comatose state. The doctors think she will likely never wake up. Adrien finds it bizarre, to be asked to once again mourn a woman who had already, to his mind, been long lost. 

He nods. “Yeah, okay.” The least he can do is visit her, while she is alive.

Many long hours later, Adrien and Marinette sit together on the balcony outside her bedroom. Marinette squeezes his hand, again. They hardly ever let go of each other, now. They’re two sides of one force, after all--creation and destruction, hand in hand.

“Adrien?” Marinette asks. She still sounds a bit nervous around him, sometimes, but less and less with each passing day. Now that he knows she had a crush on him from the start, he’s less worried about the awkwardness that lingers between them. She’s just smitten, not afraid. She loves him, and he loves her, too. 

He grins at her at the thought. “Yeah, mil--Marinette?”

“Do you think Paris has need of Ladybug and Chat Noir, now that Hawkmoth is out of the picture?” 

Adrien goes still. He hadn’t considered that as a possibility. “I...hope so,” he says, hesitantly.

“Yeah,” she agrees, faintly, “Me, too.”

Somewhere, far off, someone cries out for help.

Marinette and Adrien trade glances. Adrien tries very hard not to grin. Marinette doesn’t try at all.

“Tikki--.”

“--Plagg--”

“Spots on!”

“Claws out!”

And Ladybug and Chat Noir leap out into the night. 

\--

FIN


End file.
